Just when you think you’ve seen the back of Liz Truss, up she pops again to remind you of why the electorate gave two fingers to the Tories. Yes, Partygate was bad. So was Pincher. So was the ludicrous level of immigration, legal or otherwise.
But if there’s one thing that nailed down the coffin, it was Truss’s extraordinary 44 days in power, during which the Tory poll rating collapsed from poor but recoverable to utterly diabolical and completely irretrievable. From the moment she walked up Downing Street, my heart sank.
I’m not just being wise after the event (though that’s not beyond me). During those long weeks when the Tories were picking Boris’s successor as prime minister, I begged Tory members, on this very platform, to choose anyone but Truss. Kemi, Penny, Rishi – they had their faults, like us all, but they were so many streets ahead of Truss that you’d have needed a map and compass to find them.
And no, I’m not talking about economics. Nor common decency or sincerity. Nor even lofty vision and purpose. I have no reason to believe that Truss lacked any of those. I’m simply talking about communication and leadership skills which, let’s be frank, are pretty essential in a prime minister. Well, Truss was as wooden as my garden shed and sounded no more like a leader than the lawnmower I keep there.
So why does Truss, two years on, keep on digging? (There the lawnmower analogy falls down). Why does she continue to insist, when she can see most of the nation rolling their eyes, that it would all have been hunky-dory if she’s stayed in Number 10, and that she’d have kicked Keir Starmer into the long grass come the election, or at least have made a better shot of it than Rishi did?
Asked at the Tory Party Conference whether or not she believes she would have done better than Rishi Sunak in the General Election, she replied: “Yes, I do.”
I’m sure she really believes it. She must, I suppose. But, taking the whole nation, there aren’t many others.
Imagine Eddie the Eagle popping up during television coverage of the next Winter Olympics and insisting that if only the wind had assisted him a bit, he’d have won Gold in 1988. That is, it seems to me, Truss’s view of her few weeks in the top job.
Now, okay, I could choose a different sporting analogy from even further back. I could choose Brian Clough. He also lasted just over 40 days in the hot seat at what was then England’s foremost team, Leeds United FC. And he came back to have the last laugh at Nottingham Forest FC. He won the European Cup twice, for heaven’s sake.
Well, if Truss pops up as leader of Reform in a few years’ time, and marches triumphantly back into Downing Street as Prime Minister, I promise to eat humble pie. She’d have done a Clough. But I feel pretty safe in saying it won’t happen.
Truss isn’t yet 50 and has oodles of time ahead of her. I get that. And of course, as a former prime minister, she feels she has plenty to offer. I get that too. She’s not done, so, if she really wants to rewind to September 2022, over and over again, nobody can stop her.
Fortunately she can do little damage any more to the Tory brand. Her desperate-looking attempts to re-write history are already priced in. The Tory ship is sailing on, though who knows what stormy seas lie ahead. But, please Liz Truss, for your own sake, stop trying to justify. Stop saying “if only”. History is written by winners. Those who fall short gain far more respect if they move on gracefully.
